


Syncope

by eigengrau



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Fainting, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Meme, M/M, Non-sexual dub-con, Oh my God Hannibal you can't just smell someone when they're sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-07 22:48:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/753961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eigengrau/pseuds/eigengrau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will faints; Hannibal plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Syncope

**Author's Note:**

> Kink meme fill for the prompt here: http://hannibalkink.dreamwidth.org/1375.html?thread=1119#cmt1119
> 
> "Will ends up fainting -- whether it's a psychological thing, having his perceptive skills get to him and being overcome at exactly the wrong moment, an environmental factor, the whole tropey "character's working too hard and forgetting to eat" thing, or something else. Fortunately, Dr. Lecter is on hand, and a little more amused by the situation than Will is."

Will is swaying on his feet, reeling like a drunk as he paces the room. The office at FBI headquarters that is serving as the base of operations for their current investigation is sweltering hot, windowless and un-airconditioned. It is night, but the summer heat has leaked into everything and it is stifling. Hannibal has even removed the jacket of his pale linen suit, shirtsleeves rolled up to elbows as he watches Will wear a hole in the floor. The cork board wall stretches up and looks endless, tacked with photos and notes and strings. It's a terrible cliche, the map of murder victims, clues sloppily speared through with thumbtacks. Crawford went home to his wife hours ago, and is no doubt sitting at his desk reading files with a tumbler of whiskey. Will has not left the building in nearly twenty-four hours. His only phone call has been to one of his neighbors, asking them stiffly and awkwardly if they could feed his dogs. Hannibal leans against the hard corner of a table, arms folded across his chest, and observes.  
  
Will's in a t-shirt, his button down thrown haphazardly over the back of a chair. Even stripped down he is drenched, sweat dripping down his pale face and raining from his dark hair every time he shakes his head, which he does often, as if trying to physically dislodge a thought from his brain. He last ate twelve hours ago- Hannibal was the one to bring him a cup of coffee and a carefully made sandwich of watercress and thick slices of what Will assumed was ham but what was actually the tender flesh from the back of a particularly obnoxious art critic's thighs. He has consistently refilled his cardboard coffee cup and helped himself to handfuls of aspirin, but nothing of substance has passed his lips since then.  
  
Hannibal watches. Despite the fact that his visits to Will generally come accompanied by his cooking he is not, in fact, in charge of feeding the other man. He knows that Will is going to work himself to the point of exhaustion without someone to pull him away and tell him to lie down. In fact, he's counting on it.   
  
"He's got some sort of vehicle to transport them in, but it's not a van," Will is saying. He clutches his glasses in one hand, white knuckled. "It's not a van, because that's too obvious. He needs somewhere with surfaces, somewhere that he can set up and work on them-" He breaks off, bites a knuckle, squeezing his eyes shut with a pained look. " _God_ , he needs somewhere private and contained and mobile..."  
  
He's so close. Hannibal allows himself a small smile.   
  
Will stops moving, suddenly, his blue eyes snapping open. They focus on some intermediate point, on something only he can see. What little color there is in his face drains out of it.  
  
"Winnebago," he gulps, and his eyes roll back in his head.  
  
Hannibal is close enough that he only has to step to his left, arms outstretched, to catch Will before he hits the ground. Hannibal lowers his dead weight to the floor, observing how light Will feels compared to the other limp bodies that he's carried. The younger man's head lolls back over Hannibal's arm, exposing his throat. His jugular pulses pale muted blue under his skin, in the shadowed curve beneath the swell of his Adam's apple. He smells like sweat and fear and the last traces of cheap aftershave. The tile floor is cool beneath them, and Hannibal drags blunt long fingers through the damp tangles of Will's hair, brushing the curls off of his clammy forehead. The fluorescent lights flicker overhead, sending grey shadows out from Will's soft eyelashes and then back, disappearing under his lids.  
  
His chest rises and falls gently with unconscious breath. Hannibal leans down, closes his eyes, feels the soft brush of Will's exhale against his cheek. He could fit his teeth to the long line of Will's throat easily, could see what it feels like. But he isn't prepping a meal, here. He's just watching. Just feeling. Will is soft here, in his arms, silent and vulnerable with all his fear stripped away. But even asleep, Hannibal can still see Will's gift, can see his eyeballs twitching under the thin skin of his eyelids. That beautiful mind of his, grotesquely elegant like a chair made of antlers, moves inside him always- it is not something that can be taken away from him, that can be "cured". Here, in this sleeping, dreamless state, Will is at peace. He and his empathy are entwined completely, without any of the resistance that Will forces on himself.  
  
This is what Hannibal hopes to gain, with his Tupperware containers, with his smiles, with his little gifts of corpses to help Will figure out the crimes he so desperately needs to understand. One day he will know that the people who told him his mind was sick were so, so wrong. Hannibal just has to help him, to push him until he breaks and the pure sweet Will inside can claw its way free.   
  
It's only a matter of time.  
  
By the time Will's eyes blink open, Hannibal has raised his face from the crook of Will's neck and plastered on a concerned look. He blinks again, mouth opening and closing dryly. Hannibal can imagine the warm iron tang at the back of his throat, where tongue blends into palate. When he realizes that Hannibal is touching him he twitches, but doesn't move away. They've come so far in the past few weeks. Their eyes meet, and it's a long moment before Will looks away.  
  
"... he's got a Winnebago," he mutters thickly, staring at the floor as he fights to sit up. Hannibal offers him an arm and he takes it reluctantly, cheeks flushed, not making eye contact as he leans on him to stand. "He's living in a Winnebago and going from state to state. That's how he's taking them, that's where he's skinning them."  
  
Hannibal nods. "I'll call Jack."  
  
Will frowns, eyebrows knitting together. "I can do it."  
  
With a hand on his shoulder, Hannibal gently pushes him down into the chair. "Sit. I'll get you something to eat and a glass of water."  
  
For a second it looks like Will is going to protest, but then his shoulder slump, exhausted, and he nods his head. "Okay," he says absently, "okay."  
  
Hannibal starts to leave, takes three steps towards the door, and then calculates a turn back towards Will. "Good job, Will," he says. It's what Will wants to hear; it's what Will needs to hear.  
  
Under his bent head, Will sighs, an almost imperceptible sound of relief.  
  
Hannibal smiles.


End file.
